Episode Transcript
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Evening With a Legend is a seriesof presentations exclusive to
legends of the famous 24 hoursof LE MANS giving us an opportunity
to bring a piece of LE MANS to you.
By sharing stories and highlightsof the big event, you get a chance
to become part of the Legend ofLE MANS with guests from different
eras of over 100 years of racing.
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Tonight we have an opportunityto bring a piece of LE MANS to you.
Sharing in the Legend of LE MANSwith guests from different eras
of over 100 years of racing.
And as your host, I'm delighted tointroduce Butch Leitzinger, best known
as an ALMS driver with Dyson Racing.
He has also driven for a varietyof other teams and race series.
He's a three time winner of theDaytona, 24 hours in 19 94, 97 and 99.
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He won two IMSA drivers championshiptitles in both 97 and 98 while
driving for Dyson Racing.
And he was named.
2002 Rookie of the Year in the TransAmseries and has raced in both the
next tail and a Bush NASCAR series.
Butch has attempted to conquer the24 hours of LeMans six times in
his career, driving for Panos in97 and 99, team Cadillac in 2000.
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Then clinching a podium with Bentley in2001 and returning to Bentley in 2002
with a final run with Risi in 2003.
And he's here with us tonight toshare his motorsports journey.
And with that, I'm your host crew chiefEric from the Motor Inc. Podcast Network.
Welcoming everyone to thisevening with a legend.
Butch, welcome to the show.
Yeah, thank you very much, Eric.
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Like all good stories, there's an origin.
So take us on your road to Lamont.
What led you up to your first race in 97?
Well, it, the first time I wasever actually at Lamont was 1994.
I drove the Nissan 300 ZXTurbo and we won at Daytona.
And that meant an invite to Lamont withNissan, but I was only in the second
car and I was, you know, the, thereason I was even in, in the car in the
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first place was as, as reward becauseI won GTU Championship the year before.
You know, I've been tryingto go to Lamont for forever.
So it was always kind of like,well, you know, we don't have
a budget for a second car.
And they had Paul OSI in the second carand he had some means, and Eric Vanderbilt
had some sponsorship with lease plan.
They had a third seatthat still wasn't filled.
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Frank Kitz was running a NissanMotorsport, and so I was bugging
him all the time, you know,get me there, get me there.
And I made the mistake of saying,just get me over there and if I can't
drive, you know, I'll do tires for you.
And I kind of said that as a throwawaycomment, but came back to bite me
because I got sent over there twoweeks early because they found out
that I took French in high school,went over with Gary Cummings, who was.
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Doing the, uh, the advance prep for it.
And so I spent two weeks kind ofpreparing for the team to come over.
Still not knowing if I was gonnadrive, you know, that was given the,
I think about an hour's warning.
I, I, I live in StateCollege, Pennsylvania.
I got a phone call that said, okay, wehave a flight for you out of Newark.
In, in about six hours andit's about four hours away.
So I, I had to throw my stuff in a bagand hightail it for the airport, you
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know, and it was still just like the hopethat maybe third seat wouldn't be filled.
It eventually was filled, agentleman that had some backing
from a Japanese television station.
So then I spent the week of raceweek being a tire buster, just
taking the tires back and forth,but still as an American in 1994.
You know, Lamont.
Like right now there's quite a bit oftransfer between the US and Lamont.
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You know, there's like a lot of teams, alot of cars make the trip pretty easily.
Back then, it was much more rare.
There wasn't that much, uh,representation of Americans at Lamont.
It had always been a dream ofmine to be at Lamont, preferably
to race, but just to be there.
So this was quite possibly myone chance to ever get there.
Having said all that, how wonderfulit was to be there, I would not do it
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again as a crew member, because that,that was, that was a long, long day.
So up until that point, hadyou raced in Europe yet?
I had not.
The only thing that I'd done, notin Europe, but in Japan a few times,
there was an invitation some of theteams had from a Japanese group to
bring the GT cars over and, and weraced at Fuji twice and at auto.
Once.
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Yeah, so this was my firsttime racing in Europe as well.
So the first time you go to LA by,you're there as crew, let's just say,
hoping that they need a driver tofill in and you're anxious and you
got your helmet ready and all that.
What was your first impression of LE MANS,even as a worker bee or as a spectator?
What did you think of it compared to thetracks you had been running in the States?
It was really impressive.
I had never seen thatlevel of facility before.
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You know, this was.
Right after they had built the maincomplex, the old pit complex, quite
famous, but also quite famous for,you know, not being modern standards.
But, uh, yeah, so it was truly impressiveseeing that level at a, at a road course,
you know, 'cause in the states at thetime, in 1994, like Watkins Glen, and
trying to think of other tracks that wehave in, in the states, you know, most of
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them hadn't been updated from 1970s, youknow, so it, it was impressive to see just
even that level of facility at the time.
And then once getting to the circuititself, it was really impressive,
you know, in my two weeks I was therebefore the race, being able to drive
on the course itself and trying toimagine when there weren't, you know,
Lori's going back and forth on theroad with groceries and things that,
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that, you know, there cars going 200and whatever miles an hour on it.
It was kind of the culmination of readingmagazines for 20 years at that point.
So earlier that year, like you said,you won the Daytona 24 hours in 1994.
How did you put the deal together withPayos and who helped you along the way?
I benefited a lot fromrelationships that I had.
I driven with James Weaver andAndy Wallace at Dyson Raising from
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1995, and we got along really well.
We were very compatible as code driversand we had quite a bit of success.
Actually.
We won Daytona 24 hours together,beginning of 97 and Don Payos.
In, in 1997, I decided that hewanted to go to LE MANSn and he did
it, you know, in a typically DonPenos way of, didn't do it by half.
And he went in, he had Adrian Renardbuild him a car, and he had David
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Price run the team for him at LE MANSn.
Both James and Andy had verygood relationships with David.
Andy had driven the McLarenF1 with price's team, so they
were like really good mates.
So when it came time to get a, a thirddriver for Lamont, you know, they just
kind of poked him and said, you know,why don't you take a look at Butch?
And, and he said, who's that?
And he, he refused to call me Butchfrom the moment I met him, he said.
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But now, and if you know, pricey,there was quite a few other words that
were thrown in there, but he just,uh, you are buzz, buzz light, you.
So from then on, he,he just called me Buzz.
But yeah, so I was able to just kindof get dragged in through my friends.
So you get to LE MANS at thatmoment, were you comparing and
contrasting Daytona to LE MANS?
Were you making those?
Comparisons or was it juston a totally different level?
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It was a totally different level.
This was where I benefited hugely withJames and Andy being my teammates.
And not only that, they convinced Priceyto hire me, but before any of us went on
the track, we went around the track andthey gave me tips the entire way around.
A lot of things to remember andalso really one of the things
they did was put into me.
How dangerous this place is, thespeeds that the cars are going,
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there's often enormous accidents.
And you know, one, actually one ofthe greatest tips that they gave
me was because the straits are solong that it's a little bit easy
to kind of lose concentration.
You know, you start looking at thegauges and you know, okay, like you
start making notes like, oh, rememberto tell them that when I come in.
And the tire pressures of this.
And then miss your breaking marker becauseyou've been going down the street for the
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last 20 seconds or, or whatever it wasopposed to most normal racetracks where
it's just constantly turn, turn, turn.
It's a different rhythm to it there.
But yeah, so it was a big help havingthem to really bring me up to speed
on the seriousness of the track.
And then in spite of being there, youknow, you're, you're there for the
Wednesday, Thursday, you know, withquite a bit of practice time, but most of
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that goes away pretty quickly, you know?
And then actually we hadpre-qualifying then, but.
Every lap of pre-qualifying was takingup with Andy Wallace driving because
we didn't have very much speed.
We got in by the skin of our teeth,actually both for pre-qualifying and
qualifying itself because that yearthey, they invited to the race more
people than were going to start.
So I think it was two cars we'regoing to go through all qualifying
and then not be able to race.
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And we were almost that carjust 'cause the car wasn't what
it would eventually become.
We, we were struggling a lotwith power and with a lot of
reliability problems with the car.
But yeah, so all pre-qualifyingwas taken up with Andy driving, so
I never drove in pre-qualifying.
For the race weekend, if I rememberright, I got a few laps in a
night practice that was prettyeye-opening in every kind of way.
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You know, I I, I went out at night.
It's not like Daytona where everything'slit up, you know, even, you know,
the lights were fairly decent, butyou're very quickly driving past
your headlights at 200 miles an hour.
And I remember somebody blew anengine, so there's oil all over the
track, so they had local yellows.
And a bit of a shock to me coming fromthe US but the way they would handle
the yellows was there'd be a coursework,you know, there, there were people like
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spreading oil dry out on the track andthen a coursework just standing on the
road on the racetrack with a littlereflective light to catch your headlights.
That was quite a shock to me.
I. Like in, in, in the States,it would probably be a red flag.
You know, everyone in the pits,well, we take care of this stuff.
That wasn't the mechanism there.
So I kind of had to get a little moreaware of the difference in attitude,
I suppose, between the US and Europe.
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And then I did the warmup before therace, so like, you know, maybe six
or seven laps before the race itself,which, which is a fairly common thing.
And keep in mind, six or sevenlaps is still quite a bit of miles.
You know, you, you don't have that as muchrepetition to really be able to extract
a great lap time out of the car justbecause you don't have the experience yet.
You brought us into 97 and you wereno stranger to endurance racing by
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this point, and you were still sortof talking about the comparing and
contrasting of Daytona and Lamont's here.
Daytona, like you said, alot of turns, a lot of turns.
You'll do 200 miles an hour, but you'lldo it for a brief period of time and then
you gotta come deep into turn one andjust lose all your speed and kind of start
the whole process over again, as we know.
But the physical demands of Lamont,not only the mental demands of that
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concentration of running at nightand changes in weather conditions.
'cause that's inevitably whathappens at Lamont because it's.
So big.
After being there in 94 and then 97and and continuing your attempts,
how did you have to physicallyprepare for something as big as LE MANS
compared to the races you were doing?
Stateside.
LE MANS doesn't beat you up as much asDaytona, but it's very different mentally.
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Daytona.
The real issue, at least in the day, isthat, you know, you might have 70 cars
on the track at the start of the race.
The feeling was literally like a,like one of those video games where
those cars just kind of meanderingall around, you know, and, and you're
meant to like be like, be able to slicethrough all these little jamer cars,
yet you're, you're just constantlyevading cars and slicing through traffic.
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So I. At Daytona, your lap time mightvary by five seconds a lap easily.
We hopefully avoided a fewcrashes and things like that.
And you come around, an experienced crewchief would just look at that and say,
well, I must have had a, you know, afew, a few things happen that lap, but
like that wouldn't be a cause of alarmor anything at lamont because there were
only at, at the time, I'd race things'cause 48 cars over eight miles of track.
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So every lap is like almostqualifying, you know, you
don't really have much traffic.
One things about Lamont is that becausethe laps are so long, the team managers
don't have a whole lot else to do, exceptfor like, look at the, at their notebook
and look at what lap time you just turned.
And so, you know, they, they stare atthat for four minutes or, you know,
three minutes, 50, whatever it was.
And as they come.
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Butch is a a little bit slow today.
Like that last lap was two secondsslower than the lap before.
You know, I, I think you might be losingit just from, uh, being able to keep your
job, you know, or get a job for next year.
You really have to kind ofimpress them every lap and, you
know, really kind of have the carstanding on its nose at, at Daytona.
If you made it around for the lap.
It was a good lap.
At Lamont, you really had to bewith a good lap time, so that
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that was the biggest change inmental how to go into the race.
At Daytona, you really had to takecare of the car and make sure that you
didn't have any body work damage oranything just from touching other cars.
And at Lamont there weren'tthat many opportunities to.
So in 97 you ran the Penos GTR one,which is in the same realm of cars,
let's say the Corvettes and the Vipersand things like that that we saw here.
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Stateside and A LMS, which the ESPASPIRAnte GTR one is one of the more
memorable cars from that era, by far.
I mean, it's instantly recognizable.
The next time you come to LE MANSin 99, you come back with.
The infamous Payos, LMP Roadster,and you're partnered with
David Braham and Eric Bernard.
Obviously, Don Payos wantsto keep you on staff.
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Is that how the story goes?
How did you come back to runwith Payos for a second time?
You know, in nine seven, wedidn't have much success really.
We had actually, we had quitea few problems then in, in 98.
Don expanded the team quite a bitand, and had a lot of really high
talent drivers for the whole year.
They didn't need someone to come in justfor the, the one race, uh, at Lamont, but
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for 99 they actually had, had switchedand Tony Dow would run the program in 98.
Then he let Tony Dow go and Tony Foxcame in and, and ran the team, and it
was kind of run a little bit smaller.
They didn't have kind of acast of thousand drivers.
It was, went back to, they had.
Two drivers per car for theyear, and they needed a third for
the endurance races for Lamont.
And fortunately, at 99I won again with Dyson.
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You know, that looked kind of good onthe cv and so talked to Don and, and
he was agreeable to bring me in forthe third seat and then the next year.
2000 you've returned to LE MANS this time.
Totally different team.
Mario Andretti basicallytakes your seat at Payos.
They run the same carthe next year in 2000.
But you're back with Cadillacrunning with Andy Wallace again.
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So how did the switch happen?
You jumped from Payos to Cadillac.
How did that work out?
It was run by Bill Riley,the Cadillac program.
I'd been driving the Riley ScottFord in the States with Rob Dyson
for quite a few years by that point.
And we had a lot of success andI, and I knew Bill pretty well.
At the end of 99, I didn't really have afull-time drive for the next year because
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Rob Dyson realized that the Riley's timewas getting pretty old and he was looking
at getting something else, but he wasn'treally sure that he was going to, and so
he was on the fence of doing anything.
And so I started talkingto Bill Riley and Cadillac.
Yeah, so that came about and, andbecause Andy was there too, that, you
know, I, I felt very good about thatand I had a lot of respect for Bill.
The program itself didn't go that well.
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I mean, it really comes down to the,the engines didn't make much power.
They had a directive from Cadillacthat the car had to go 200 miles an
hour on, on Miles San, and it did.
They reached that goal.
I, I think, where it was like right at200 miles an hour and we were, I think,
the second fastest car in the speed traps.
But we were also like 13th and 14thfastest on the, on the actual lap times.
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You know, the car just didn't make muchdown for us in order to meet that goal.
Our quartering speed was pretty poor.
Reliability wasn't great either.
We ran Daytona and Seabring before.
Lamont had a lot of problems,a lot of gearbox problems.
They had to actually re-engineer the backof the car and used a different gearbox.
From what we started with,the tires weren't really
the right tires to be using.
You know, at Lamont, ifyou're not on Michelin, it's,
it's almost a waste of time.
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I worked with some really great people forthat, but it was, you know, a lot of great
people bashing their heads against thewall because we just weren't fast enough.
So what I'm hearing is you were reallymissing the payos at that point.
Yeah, the Enos was good.
You know, the open top Pantosin 99 was a brand new car.
I'm gonna forget the designer'sname, but basically cut the top off
the car, but obviously did a lot ofother engineering on the car as well.
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It actually, it really was a missile.
I mean it, it was a really good fast car.
Robert Yates did the enginesand they made a ton of power.
It was a really good car.
It was very odd driving both theoriginal Panos and the open top car.
The seating position was very farback, almost like over the rear axle.
The actual feel from the car there.
There's a lot of movement.
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When, when you're in a normal prototype,you're just kind of behind the front
wheels and you're kind of at thependulum point between the front rear,
so you don't get that much moving.
And especially in ya when the car startsto slide, your butt might move an inch
or two inches in, in relation to the,the front of the car, and you kind of can
scale like how much of a slide you're at.
But with sitting so far back, numberone, like, like over any bumps.
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There was quite a bit of movement.
All the rear movement of the car, youwere kind of on top of the, the axle
and then the normal slide your buttwould actually be moving like, you know,
maybe a foot compared to the front axle.
So like it took a long time toreally trust could go as far as
what it felt like, like goingincredibly sideways with the car.
But it was actually the same amount,but you were so much farther back,
it was changing your perspective.
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So at this point you're becoming ahousehold name at LE MANS, and 94 is
the tire guy and the 97 9 9 2000.
Now we've reached 2001 and you switchteams again and you end up at Bentley.
So how did that play out?
And that again was through,uh, James and Andy.
James had done a lot of thetesting for Bentley with Richard
Lloyd's program, and both Jamesand Andy had driven the Audi RHC.
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In 1999 when I, when I was in thepayos, and again, it was a situation
where they needed a third driver.
James was very good about pointingout that Bentley's biggest
market was the United States.
You should have this guy on.
And, and I certainly tried to workthat angle as much as I could too.
Yeah.
And, and so I, I was able toconvince them to gimme a ride for it.
Unfortunately, James ended up notdoing the race with us because of
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some disagreements that he had.
It was really unfortunate 'cause Jamesand Andy and I got along so well.
It, it would've been great toshare the car with him, but it
was a very high stakes program.
'cause Bentley put a lot of, you know,resources into it, but only one race.
You know, it's, it's not like.
You can have a bad race, but you know,maybe have a few good races elsewhere
in the year and at the end of theyear can say, well, you know, at
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least we had some success with this.
Everything was just piled onfor Lamont and that was it.
That sounds like a French manufacturer.
That only shows up once a year.
Yes, yes.
No, it, uh, it's kind of the same idea aswell because Bentley, I think the reason.
They were interested in thefirst place was just the history
that Bentley had at Lamont.
It didn't really make as much sense tothe board, I'm sure to win a race at
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Elkhart Lake as opposed to at Lamont.
You know, Lamont was really the onlything that they were interested in.
Definitely an iconic win for Bentleyfor them to come back and all that.
But what's interesting, couple threadswe need to pull on here because.
Many may not know.
And you touched upon something reallyimportant, which is the Audi R eight
C, is that at this point, VolkswagenAudi group had purchased Bentley,
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and so you've got all this Germanbacking and engineering, you know,
controlling as a small boutique Britishmanufacturer that has racing pedigree.
That goes back to the beginning of cars.
The R eight C was a previousgeneration prototype that was, I
hate to say, a complete failure.
It was their closed cockpit versionof the original R eight, always in
the shadows of the BMWV 12 and theMercedes GTR and the Porsche nine 11
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GT one, and all those kinds of cars.
And it never really made a name for itselfuntil the next generation car came out.
So I think it's funny that theysort of went back and pulled the
REC out of mothballs and said.
We're gonna change some body panels,but basic physics and core of it.
It's the same car.
We'll paint it green andwe'll call it the speed eight.
Did you feel some of that workingwith Bentley, that it was like
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there was this shadow of Porscheand Audi looming in the background?
Oh, for sure.
There was no mistaking that we were a partof the Volkswagen group, but it still was.
Kind of a bunch of British peopleworking under the Volkswagen umbrella.
Garas, right?
Yeah, a group.
RTN was the people who built the car.
Peter Ellery was a designer,both of the RHC and the Bentley.
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But it, but it, it was from 99 with theRHC to 2001 when we had the Bentley.
It was a completeredesign 'cause obviously.
As you said, I hate to say failure, butit was, it was certainly not a success.
They had a a lot of trouble, youknow, my friends were driving the
car, so I was paying attention toit and I, I saw it was in the pits
a lot when it was even running.
I know they even had like doors comeflying off, you know, it was just
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one of those things where, you know,it was a, it was another one year
program only for LeMans and I, andI know they had very little testing.
You know, they, they tried to do testingwhen we were at Paul Ricard and they
spent very little time actually on track.
You know, I think that they learned.
A lot of what not to dowith the, the first car.
And Peter was able to design a, a reallynicely balanced and also very pretty car
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with the Bentley, with the, the exp theBentley was a prototype and Audi was also
there with the R eight Roadster, right?
The R eight R at the same time.
And so people were like, well,Bentley won, but Audi won.
They're book print.
Wait, so there's more than one class, butit wasn't like today where it's LMP one
GTP now and LMP two, and there used tobe P three and all these kinds of things.
(20:11):
So you were in LMP 900 and then theAudi R eight was in LP one, but you
were still fighting for an overall winbecause the cars were that close, right?
Yeah.
They had different classes, categories.
And they each had a different trophy.
We were really the onlyones in the LMP 900.
We finished third.
Overall, I got a trophy that saysfirst place on it from Lamont, but
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the reason we were there was to winoverall, you know, so Bentley was very
happy with that first year result.
You know, had kind of told usthat, you know, anything in the
top 10, like really finishing therace was the most important thing.
'cause it was really a threeyear program finishing the race.
Top 10 would be good.
Top five would be great, was kindof like what we were built up to.
So to get on the podium was pretty huge.
(20:57):
But in our minds, we placed thirdbecause the reason we were there was
to compete against the Audis, you know,the, the, the organizers had done their
best to try to equalize what a timewould be between the two different cars.
We had a smaller tire, but alittle bit better aerodynamics,
a little bit bigger restrictor.
In their view, you know,we should be pretty close.
And we were pretty close.
So like it actually did apretty good job with that.
(21:19):
But yeah, so, uh, we placedthere, we actually had had quite
a few problems in the race.
2001 was the year that it rainedcats and dogs for quite a bit of it.
And one of the, uh, air intakesfor the shifting mechanism took
on a lot of water and failed onboth the cars on our team car.
That was Guy Smith, MartinBrundle and, and Stef Orelli.
It failed enough.
It was stuck in six.
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And they weren't able to make it backwithout burning out the clutch with me.
It happened a few timesand I kept carrying on.
You could kind of trick it alittle bit with grabbing the clutch
and shifting at the same time.
You could take some load off of it and itwould still shift, but eventually it did
stick, but it stuck in fourth gear, soI was able to make it back to the pits.
And then we did a swap on it, but,and I think the swap probably took.
I wanna say like 40 minutes or, youknow, or may, maybe not that long, but
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it might've been like a 20 minute stop.
So we lost a lot of time with that.
You didn't have the Audi advantageof un bolting the whole rear end and
putting a new one on within the contextof a lap and then going back out.
No.
No.
And, and we did not.
And that was really disappointing.
And in fact, with the problems that wehad, we dropped back quite a bit, but we
were coming back and, and other cars werehaving problems and we're getting, you
(22:22):
know, up the leaderboard pretty quickly.
At one point I heard.
The lab speaker.
Oh, the transmissionproblems for the Audi?
Yes.
Right.
Okay.
Like there's, there's one down andthen, you know, a couple minutes
later that's back on the track.
Yeah.
So that really kind of tooksome of the air out as well.
Well, it blew everybody's mind.
We all saw it live.
We're like, what are they, didthey just do what I think they did?
(22:43):
Yeah, yeah.
Yeah.
That was, uh, pretty disappointing.
If, if they weren't out ofthe race altogether, they're
gonna be down for a while.
In the rain.
I know, I remember at leastone of them when I was like
walking to do one of my stints.
I looked up at the tv, one of the carswas in the gravel, so I thought, okay,
well at least it's gonna be, you know, alittle bit before they can take 'em out.
But the bloody marshals were super,uh, en enthused at that point, and,
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and they, they got the car out.
Probably only lost like 30 seconds.
With that, we didn't have, uh, asmuch luck as, as we needed to try
to get back onto equal footing.
So when you look back at this pointto your previous runs at LE MANS, you're
driving this, you know, we're putair quotes around British, but you
know, German, DNA to prototype car.
Was it a leap in a bound different,despite all its problems that it had?
(23:28):
Did you enjoy driving some of theprevious cars more, or was the Bentley
at that point, like that was the car?
Bentley was probably my favoriteof all the cars that I drove there.
Not, not just because of the success,but it was a really nicely balanced car.
It did everything very well.
There weren't really any bad habits.
Just comparing to the other cars, likethe Panos Roadster, number one was
pretty slow, but also extremely hot.
(23:49):
Extremely loud.
I think most of my hearing exitedbetween that year and then 99
also with the Panos 'cause.
'cause the cars were exexcruciatingly loud, you know?
And in, in fact, in 97 we drivers Jamesand Andy and I, we single stinted.
And the main reason was just becauseof the noise was so bad, it felt like
you were in a war zone or something.
It was just like, it was, it wasalmost hard to, to concentrate.
(24:10):
It was so loud.
And then with the open top, Penos.
This was definitely, you know,my fault, trying to be, you know,
kind of a, an easygoing teammate.
I didn't really get the cockpit to myliking, and I was stuck up a little
bit in the Airstream and we, we triedto do some things with the windscreen
to make it a little bit better, butthat the other drivers didn't like it.
So basically I had to put a padon my head because my head was in
(24:32):
the Airstream and, and on straits,it would just get pinned back.
So I had to have a pad on it so Icould just like at least rest it there.
But if I started to look left or right,it would take my head like that, you
know, and, and try to rip it off.
So I just had to keep my headdead straight and just use my
eyes whenever I was going leftor right, which wasn't ideal.
But the car was very good.
It was, it was a little bit morebrute force as opposed to, uh,
(24:53):
at a time kind of on its own.
You really had to drag it aroundthe track, which David Bradham
especially was extremely good at.
And then the Cadillac just didn'treally have the pace that we needed
and also didn't have the downforce.
So yeah, it just was neverreally that satisfying.
But, so the Bentley was definitely of, ofall those cars, the the best of them all.
So 2002 is where it gets interestingbecause you've returned to Lamont yet
(25:14):
again with Bentley, and it's the sameteam, and the same car, and the same
drivers, and nearly the same result.
But in the states, you doubledown and you're running
TransAm, which is nothing like.
The Bentley at the same timeas campaigning this card,
other racing that you're doing.
Tell us a little bit moreabout this 2002 attempt.
What was the goal going into it?
(25:35):
Was it We did third lasttime We battled it out.
You're suddenly on the podiumnow you wanna do it again.
What was the ambition of the Bentleyteam going in for a second year?
We were almost the victimof our own success.
In 2001, things went alot better than it was.
It was expected to, you know,they kind of had their chart of
expectations and you know, with rampingup with a win for the third year.
(25:56):
But we had done well enough thatthey thought, well, do we really
even need to do the second year?
Because they wanted acomplete redesign of the car.
There wasn't enough time to dotop to bottom redesign of the car.
And it wasn't really until, yeah, I thinkit was at Daytona test in January that I
finally got word that, okay, we're going.
To Lamont, you know, which isonly six months away from that.
(26:17):
Yeah.
So I, I went into 2002 with, well,actually really with Harley any work.
'cause I, this was another point where,where Rob Dyson decided that, that,
you know, he wasn't sure that he wasgonna do a full season at that time it
was, I guess Grand Dam or U-S-R-R-C, Ican't remember what, what, what it was.
But anyway, so he couldn'treally commit to a full program.
Bentley going into the year seemedabout 50 50, whether they're going
(26:38):
to be doing it, so I, I saw whereTom Glowy in the TransAm series had
an opening for a driver, so I calledhim to see if he was available.
Fortunately that worked out,and also he was agreeable to
letting me go and test in France.
And nothing fortunatelycollided on the schedule.
So I was able to do afull commitment on both.
But yeah, so when Bentley finallydecided to do the program, it was
(26:59):
with a mild update on the car.
Uh, they, they really even said this tous was, it was really just as a way to
kind of keep the team together and kindof keep learning the next year, which
was meant to be the year that they won.
And it was known at this timeeven that we were always a part of
Volkswagen, you know, in the Audi group.
So there was always some give and take.
(27:19):
You know, we were running an Audi engine.
In fact, our first test in 2001 was ata track called MOS in Czech Republic,
and it went really well, and Audiwas testing at the same time and we
were actually matching their times.
You know, we, we left that testthinking, wow, we've really
got something serious here.
Then we never went as fast again.
And I won't explain too much what I meanby that, but you might be able to kind of
(27:43):
draw, we'll call it balance of performanceand put air quotes around that.
The car never quite seemedto have the same snap that it
did at that first test either.
So the, the idea was, and you know,and the way they carried it out
as well was for the third year.
The Volkswagen kind of emphasis would gofrom Audi to Bentley, you know, and that's
why there were no factory Audis run.
The YO team came and ran one of theBentleys and they basically brought
(28:06):
quite a bit of the Audi drivers overas well to run the cars just 'cause it
was, they became the primary programthat foreshadows the 2003 season.
So before we talk about your return toLamont in 2003, you were there to see
it unfold, but you weren't part of.
The Bentley roster in 2003, andthere's still arguments to this day.
It even sits sideways sometimeswith me when I think about it.
(28:28):
The phrase is that Audi sort ofgifted Bentley the win in 2003.
What were your thoughts about Bentley'sthird and final in their program as you
knew they were gonna do three years?
You know.
Okay.
So they clinched it in that thirdyear, but was it really theirs?
Let's sort of settlethe debate, I suppose.
The Volkswagen group definitely.
You know, the favored mark forthat year was Bentley for sure.
(28:50):
But having said that, the carthat Peter Ellery penned for
that year was a brilliant car.
It was a beautiful car, justlike, you know, being outside the
program at that point, but watchingit, it looked really impressive.
And they went to Michelintires, which was an improvement.
Yeah.
And then the competition, you know,it, it went all to private tier Audis.
I'm not sure if I remember right, but Ithink maybe the balance of performance
(29:10):
had been shifted a bit as well, wherethe Audis got a little bit of a haircut
on their restrictor as well, so therewas definitely a favored sun there.
They also executed really well, you know,and, and by having Ghost Run one car and
Richard Lloyd's team run the other car.
There was still competitionbetween the two.
It wasn't even like two cars just goingaround in formation for the entire race.
(29:31):
You know, you, you had rivalries.
British group over here andthe German group over here.
So there were definitely both sides reallytrying to push their own side through.
You know, I, I don't think they,they weren't necessarily gifted
anything, but there was definitelymost favorable situation of
the three years that they had.
Do you feel like you missed out notbeing one of the drivers selected, or was
there a reason to go to Ferrari instead?
(29:51):
Well, no, I went to Ferrari just because.
I didn't have anything else, youknow, that I also was very happy to
get a ride with the GT team, but Iwould've loved, and I, you know, I,
I pleaded my case as much as I could,but they were pretty set that they
wanted a more or less British car guy.
And David, and, well, no, actuallyDavid was in the other car, but it was
obvious that they were gonna be bringingsome of the Audi drivers over as well.
(30:12):
And, you know, I, I can't really blamethem 'cause they were fantastic drivers.
And if this is the one yearthat you have to win LE MANSn.
I can certainly see their argumentthat you want to have people that
have won Lamont before, so I didn'ttake it too hard, but Got it.
Would've been great.
And we've heard from other legendsthat have been on the show, whether it
was, you know, David Murray or it wasAdrian Fernandez that have made the
(30:32):
transition from l and p down to theproduction classes versus somebody like
Andy Pilgrim who's super comfortable,you know, behind the wheel of a
Corvette versus going the other way.
What I've heard as a kind of a consensusfrom those drivers that it wasn't like
it was a step down, it was different.
And we talked about how much time theyspent being maybe more situationally
(30:52):
aware, driving in their mirrors.
It's just a whole different atmospherebecause of the speed differential.
So when you step down from LM one, let's.
Say down into the production classeswith the Ferrari, did you have
the same experience where suddenlyyou're like, man, I'm not used to
all these cars ganging up on me.
And like you said, you're oneof the, the Jamer cars, right?
(31:13):
You know, out on track.
Was it like that for you?
Not really.
I grew up doing GT racings.
I'd spent quite a bit of time in thatrole before I went to prototypes, so
it wasn't completely foreign to me.
But having said that, driving highhorsepower cars, high downforce cars
can also maybe make you a little bit.
Lazy, exploiting like everything that theyhave and, you know, maybe not using all
(31:33):
momentum that you have because you've got700 horsepower to dig you out of the turn.
Now all of a sudden when you've got 400horsepower little tires and, and no down
force, it becomes much more criticalto be really tidy with everything.
And so, like that was probably thebiggest challenge was, you know, being
inch perfect everywhere and not kindof like trying to drag a time out
of it, but kind of like really likeletting the car, uh, do what it wants.
(31:54):
Had you driven a Ferraribefore this point?
And the reason I bring it up isto compare it to coming off of
a TransAm season in a Corvette.
What was that like?
Yeah, there was like nothingsimilar between the two.
It, that was the only time I drovea Ferrari, even since I think
actually, but it was very different.
The setup on the car was very softas opposed to what I was maybe
more used to with prototypes.
(32:16):
It took a lot of getting used to.
Yeah, and I, and I honestly, Iwasn't the fastest driver on the team
either, because I, I kind of cominginto it a little bit cold like that.
But even so, we were actually, wewere, we were doing really well.
There's a problem withthe Porsches that year.
I think they had a fuel problemor something like that, or
maybe a fuel pump problem.
We found ourselves leading intothe night at some point, a way
that we, that we were leading.
But then we, we had an engine blow.
(32:37):
Someone came when I was sleeping inthe, in the, you know, little cubicle
inform me that engine was blown up.
So we, we did only lasted probablyless than 10 hours in that one.
But it was, it was, it was good togo back there and have a perspective
from the gt 'cause all the otherswere being in the top class.
So, yeah, it, it was.
An interesting way to do it.
Six attempts at LeMans,tons of challenges, weather
(32:57):
conditions, changing teams.
So many things that you've been probablythinking about in preparation for this.
And we like to ask the legends thatcome on the show, when you take
all that into consideration, whenyou look at it now, maybe with rose
colored glasses in some respects.
Your Lamont's journey is longerthan a lot of other drivers.
You know, some people, it's oneand done, you know, and then you've
got others that have done it, youknow, a dozen times and so on.
(33:19):
But when you look back overthose six attempts, what do
you think Lamont's taught you?
Did it make you a better driver whenyou went into your other series?
I think so, yeah.
Well, I suppose the biggest thingis just being able to kind of.
Handle the pressure of such a bigevent, especially on the Bentley
side where, you know, there was anenormous amount of resources that
were put behind this one team.
There was only one race, you know,so the stress and, and the pressure
(33:43):
get builds up every day, every day,you know, leading up to the race.
And then the actual weekend itself,it gets pretty crazy, you know, all of
the PR people freaking out, you know,just as much as everyone's feeling
the pressure and kind of showing it.
So I, I think one of the biggest thingsis just being able to absorb that much
pressure and go out and, you know, and,and do what you're, you're supposed to do.
(34:04):
And then the other part, like wetalked about earlier, was just
because at Lamont you don't havetraffic so much to deal with.
There's a much higheremphasis on lap times.
Throughout all 24 hours as opposedto survival, having to shift the
whole attitude from just having a cartogether to race the last few hours.
Where at?
At Lamont, you're really from thebeginning of the race, just going as
(34:24):
hard as you can and just hoping and, andassuming that the car is going to put up
with it, and if not, as the car's fault,the driver at Lamont isn't meant to really
take care of the car so much as to justextract every bit of speed out of it.
So even before the first time youwent to LE MANS as the tire guy in
1994, you mentioned that you hadalways wanted to race at LE MANS.
(34:46):
And I've interviewed plentyof other up and coming drivers
that say the same thing.
LE MANS is one of the crown jewels,part of the triple crown of
Motorsport for that matter.
And they wanted race at LE MANS and theyhaven't been able to get there yet.
Having been there six times yourself,what advice would you give based
on all your experiences to theseup and coming drivers that wanna
go to LE MANS first would be I. Do it.
(35:08):
You know, like what, whatever youcan, like, put a lot of effort
into defining it, whatever pathyou can do to, to get there.
Whether that means having successin prototype or GT racing, you know,
like in in the, in IMSA here or in,you know, in the European series.
And find out who's going.
Like the way I got the Ferrari drive wasjust looking at the entry list and seeing
which cars didn't have a third driver.
(35:30):
And then starting to make phonecalls, I'm sure it's not quite
as, as simple as that anymore.
I think deals are done, I think muchearlier maybe than, than they used to be.
This was probably, I wanna saymaybe in March or so, maybe April,
even when, when I made the deal forthe Ferrari, so it was quite late.
Whereas now it seems like all theteams, when when the entries announced.
Four or five months ahead oftime, like they've already
(35:51):
got all their drivers set up.
But the biggest thing withracing is really relationships.
You know, as I said, how, how I gotinto it with having a relationship with
James and Andy and then David Price,and just kind of knowing people so
that whenever your name does come up,it can click and it can say, oh, okay,
well yeah, actually that makes sense.
As opposed to whenever they haveto say, you know, who is that?
That doesn't help.
Whatever you can do to get your nameout there, whatever success you can
(36:14):
get, I think helps in being chosenfor a drive at Lamont because everyone
is very selective because it is, Imean, a huge event, but also a huge
expense for whatever team is doing it.
I don't imagine that it's changed a lot,but I, I know that, like Rob Dyson used to
say that when he was looking at possiblyentering them on the budget for doing.
The one race was the same as doingan entire year, and no one's going to
(36:35):
make just kind of an offhand choice.
Every choice is going to be verythought out, so you know, you need
to make your case as strong as youpossibly can to get the opportunity
watching Rolex watching LE MANS oreven the 24 hours of the Berg ring.
It's a lot to swallow for some people.
There's some diehards, like inthe A-C-O-U-S-A, we try to stay
up as long as we can to watch therace and watch you guys compete.
(36:57):
You got a lot of folks out therethat are coming into Motorsport by
way of things like Drive to Surviveand Formula One and other channels
and disciplines of Motorsport.
So if somebody asked you, Butch, Iheard, should you raced at Lamont?
You know, I don't know if I canstomach watching this type of racing.
What would you say to them to get themexcited to watch something like the 24?
You know, I've been to Lamont a coupletimes since with Michelin, where Michelin
(37:18):
rewards some of their best dealers witha, a trip to France and with their spouse
and, and they've taken the, the eventand no one ever comes away from that.
Disappointed.
It's amazing.
There's, there's nothing likeseeing cars go that speed at night.
I mean, just like visually the, thesensory overload as the cars burst through
(37:39):
the darkness and come screaming past youand just all of your senses are just so
completely attuned to, you know, and beingassaulted really as the car goes by you.
It's something very special.
And if you ever get any chanceto go to Lamont to visit
Lamont, definitely take it.
If you can do it with a package, it's evenbetter, you know, if it's some kind of
group or you can get tours and get, getbehind the scenes, it's so much better.
(38:00):
But yeah, it, it's an event.
You know, it's, it's like, you know,I've been to like the Preakness
horse race and like Indy 500.
Even just standing there, you know, inthe grandstands or in the infield of
the Preakness, the buzz of the people.
There's like electricity in the air.
You really feel like you're at an event.
You know, it's not just likegoing to a sporting event.
It's going to, it's reallysignificant event where I think
(38:22):
what they have like 200,000 peopleare there, you know, watching it.
You really feel likeyou're a part of something.
Anyone who goes there willnot come back Disappointed.
I'm glad you opened the doorto talk about being part of
something as we wrap up here.
So, if you could transport Butch fromthe past to the current season, you
know, the last couple years of cars,is there anything you would drive
that's out there on the track now?
(38:42):
I wouldn't drive it very well, probably.
I definitely try to maybe notlet anyone know it was me, 'cause
I'd probably embarrassed myself.
But I am very interested thoughin, in the modern prototypes and
the hybrid systems and, and just.
Everything that goes into it.
And honestly, like, you know, I, I try towatch some of the racing on tv and I've
never really seen very good explanationson what are the drivers doing, what
are the teams telling 'em to do?
(39:03):
Like how much is automatic, buthow are they balancing the, like
all these different systems.
I'm very curious on the technical side,how all that works together and how much
the driver is actually doing with it.
You know, I have seen the cars though,and they're incredibly impressive.
With the hybrid system and the,the ice engines, they absolutely
just explode off the line.
Coming out of a, a slow turn, theacceleration is just mind blowing.
(39:25):
Yeah, that, that would be probably thething that I would like the most is just
to be able to feel the acceleration thatthe modern cars have this year, next year,
and next couple seasons are gonna be abig to-do because Aston Martin is back.
Ford has announced that they'recoming back to L-M-P-G-T-P.
Do you think Bentley's gonnamake a return in the future?
What are your thoughts on that?
Obviously they don't have any insideknowledge, but I do know that they looked
(39:45):
at LMP two, can't remember how many yearsago, but I wanna say like maybe six years
ago, five years ago, before Covid anyway.
And at the time it seemed kind ofodd to me, but I think they probably
knew at the time that basicallythe prototypes were kind of going
towards LMP two kind of size and thenwith with the hybrids and all that.
So I wouldn't put it past them.
I know the Volkswagen boardis keen to keep Bentley.
(40:05):
Known as a performance brand.
That was the reason that we wentin the first place was that when
Volkswagen purchased Bentley at thetime, they morphed into like, it's
kind of Rolls Royce, but not really.
They had a hard time kind of sayingwhat they really stood for, I think.
And Volkswagen Group camein and, and said, we need to
reestablish what Bentley is.
And you know, I thinkit worked really well.
I think when you see a Bentley actuallyhas some basis for the performance
(40:30):
behind it, you know, like it actuallyhas history, you know, so, and it's
not only ancient history, it's also.
Modern history.
So yeah, I, I wouldn't be surprisedif, you know, every few years, maybe
every 10 years or something likethat, they decide that they need to
kind of freshen that up and go back.
I hope they do 'cause it is great.
One of the coolest things when I waswith Bentley is we did some factory
visits and it was just great to goto crew, these old brick buildings.
(40:51):
I. And where they built spitfireengines during the war and, but
they actually to see like the waythat they're assembling these cars,
like seeing the wood be cut for thedashes and, and the leather selected.
It was cool to see carsstill made by people's hands.
If the Volkswagen group can justify it.
I'm sure that there's still people atBentley that want to go back to Lamont.
This year's also a big year forLamont because it's going to be
(41:12):
the 12th running of the classic.
It's been a while since the classic.
So if you got an invite to gorun one of your previous Lamont's
entries, would you do it?
Oh, absolutely, yes.
I'm doing some of that now onstateside where a gentleman named
Juan Gonzalez has actually one ofthe Cadillac more modern is 2017
Cadillacs that he and I drive over here.
We, we just did the Sebring Classic.
It's a great way just to go outand have some fun behind the
(41:34):
wheel and no, no pressure just toenjoy reliving some glory days.
No, absolutely.
If there's any chance to get back tothem all, I'll definitely take it.
I'm glad to see that you're still outthere racing butch, and I think you
need to update your business card.
Just say Butch inger to LeMans and beyond.
Sounds good.
Well, as we wrap this out, I wannapass the torch to our A CO Ambassador
(41:56):
Mai Lee for some closing thoughts.
Thanks a lot, Butch, for your time hereand sharing your wisdom and your stories.
It's been very enlightening and veryenjoyable, and thanks again to Eric for
the excellent hosting for the event.
Thanks to all the a COmembers who've dialed in.
Have a great rest of your evening.
Thank you very much and onbehalf of everyone here and those
listening at home, thank you Butchfor sharing your stories with us.
(42:18):
We took a deep dive into the incrediblejourney of Butch Litzinger and his six
attempts at conquering the 24 hoursof LE MANS from his near victory with
Bentley in 2001, to the challengesand triumphs that defined his career.
Butch's story is one ofperseverance, passion and
resilience in the face of adversity.
A special thanks to Butch forsharing his experience with us and
giving us a closer look at what ittruly takes to race at Lamont's.
(42:41):
His podium finish in 2001 will foreverbe remembered as one of the most
remarkable moments in endurance racing.
We hope you enjoyed this presentationand look forward to more evening
with a legend throughout the season.
And with that Butch, I can't thankyou enough for coming on the show,
sharing your stories with us.
And I have to say, it feels reallyodd to say this, but I grew up
watching you race and it's been anabsolute honor to sit down and listen
(43:03):
to you and talk about your stories.
So thank you for sharing.
It was very kind of you.
I appreciate that, Eric.
I had a great time.
Uh uh, thanks.
I'm happy to do it at anytime and keep turning laps.
Right on.
(43:23):
This episode has been brought to youby the Automobile Club of the West and
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The 24 hours of the LE MANS is anautomotive spectacle like no other
For over a century, the 24 hours LE MANShas urged manufacturers to innovate
for the benefit of future motorists.
(43:44):
It's a celebration of the relentlesspursuit of speed and excellence
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To learn more about or to become a memberof the A-C-O-U-S-A look no further than
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Once you've become a member, you canfollow all the action on the Facebook
(44:06):
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(44:28):
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